Lancaster's Choice

Louder and nearer grew the notes of the nightingale, as Leonora hastened on. She thought she had never heard anything so sweet. At first it had only been one bird, but now several had joined their notes together in a medley of intoxicating music that swelled deliciously upon the fragrant air of the night. She walked lightly, almost holding her breath as she came upon the scene, for fear of frightening them away.

She passed from the shadow of the grand oaks that had overhung her path, out into an open space, and the Magic Mirror burst upon her sight—a little limpid lake fringed with willows and sweet-brier and water-lilies, and so clear that the full, white radiance of the moon and stars was mirrored on its tranquil breast, while, hid in the thicket of rose and willow, the night birds were pouring out their hearts in song.

"Oh, how sweet!" cried the girl. She clasped her hands in an ecstasy. Her heart was touched by the peaceful beauty and enchanting repose of the scene. Scarce a ripple stirred the bosom of the quiet lake, and the water-lilies, drooping to look at their fair reflections, were scarcely ruffled by the soft, light breeze that played around the enchanting spot.

Leonora moved softly forward to the verge of the Magic Mirror, and bending forward, with a slightly quickened heart-beat, gazed down into its crystal-clear depths. She saw her own face gazing back at her with all its fresh young beauty, its eager eyes and parted lips, the dark veil twisted carelessly about her head, and the loose tresses of her hair flowing beneath it. She saw all this clearly as in a mirror, and for a moment she remained intently gazing at it, wondering if the old legend were indeed true, and if the face of her future husband would indeed rise from those mysterious depths by the side of her own.

So absorbed was she in contemplation that she did not detect the faint scent of cigar smoke that suddenly filled the air; she did not hear the approaching step that was muffled also, not to frighten the birds away. She remained gazing intently into the water, half bent forward, her hand grasping the slender branch of a willow, until suddenly, in the mystic pool, a face looked over her shoulder—the face of her fate.

CHAPTER XXIV

Something like a startled cry burst from Leonora's lips as she thus beheld that face beside her own—that fair, strong, handsome face that was as familiar as her own—the face of Clive, Lord Lancaster.

She believed for a moment that his face had indeed arisen from the depths of the enchanted pool, and after that one startled cry she was silent, watching it with dilated eyes and bated breath, expecting every moment to see it fade into the nothingness from which it had sprung.

But, instead of fading, it grew clearer to her sight; it changed its expression. At first it had a half-mischievous smile upon the lips and in the eyes; this changed to gravity, tenderness, and passion. It was the face of a lover on which Leonora now gazed with rapt interest, unconscious that—

"His eyes looked loveTo eyes that spake again."

It was a moment of silent happiness.

The light wind stirred the lily-buds on the bosom of the lake that held those two fair faces mirrored in its breast; the nightingale's song pierced their hearts with exquisite pleasure that bordered on pain.

Leonora, wandering for one moment in the Land of Enchantment, was recalled to the present and to the actual by the man's folly.

He should have stolen away as he had come, in silence, leaving her alone with her beautiful, strange illusion, to bear its fruit in due season; but—

"Men's hearts crave tangible, close tenderness,Love's presence, warm and near."

He yielded to a tender impulse without trying to resist it. He was close beside her; his cheek was near her own; his eyes looked into her eyes as they gazed up from the water, and those soft orbs had a look in them that made him dizzy with delight. He slid his arms around the graceful bending form and whispered in her ear:

"Leonora, is it fate?"

Alas!

"A touch, a kiss! the charm was snapt!"

Like one startled from a dream, she looked up and saw him holding her in that strong clasp, gazing into her face with a passion that frightened her. She tore herself from his arms.

"How dared you? oh, how dared you?" she cried out, indignantly.

Her angry words, her scornful glance, chilled the fire that burned within him. He realized his folly. Why had he touched her, frightened her, and so broken the spell of enchantment that held her? She would never forgive him, perhaps, for his temerity.

"Did you think, because you were my Lord Lancaster, forsooth, and I only the housekeeper's niece, that you could insult me thus?"

Her voice broke cold and sharp on the stillness. The nightingales had all flown away at the first sound of her angry tones.

"Insult you?" cried the culprit, agitatedly; he was too much shocked at the result of his hasty act to speak calmer. "Believe me, Miss West, I meant no insult. I did not think that you would take it so."

His words were unfortunate. They irritated Leonora even more.

"You did not think so?" she cried, gazing reproachfully at him. "And, pray, sir, what cause had I given you to—to think that your caresses could be agreeable to me?"

He stood gazing at her in silence.

If he told her the real truth—told her that the face in the Magic Mirror had fooled him with its soft eyes and tender lips, and led him on to the commission of that impulsive act—she would be more angry than ever. She would deny that her own looks had tempted him, made a fool of him. He would not stoop to exculpate himself from the anger of one so manifestly unjust.

All the Lancaster pride flushed into his face as he stood looking down at her from his haughty height, his arms folded over his broad breast.

"What cause had I given you," she repeated, stamping her little foot angrily on the earth, "to think that your caresses were agreeable to me?"

"She is a little shrew!" he said to himself, with sudden anger. "I will never give another thought to her."

With that thought he answered, coldly:

"If you were like other women, Miss West, I might exculpate myself in your eyes. But as it is, I can only say that I meant no harm, and I humbly crave your pardon."

"Like other women!" she flashed, haughtily. "What do you mean, Lord Lancaster? Does the misfortune of my poverty and lowly birth place me beyond the pale of your respectful consideration? Perhaps, were I Lady Adela Eastwood it would be different."

"What the deuce does she know about the earl's daughter?" he asked himself, in extreme astonishment; but he answered, eagerly:

"Yes, indeed, it would be different, Miss West. I should not look into the Magic Mirror over Lady Adela's shoulder, certainly; nor would I put my arm around her waist, but—"

He could not say another word, for she interrupted him, glowing with angry beauty.

"So you acknowledge the truth to my very face. For shame, Lord Lancaster! You throw discredit upon your name of gentleman; you make me hate and despise you for those words! No; I will never forgive you as long as I live!" sobbed Leonora, bursting into angry tears; and then she fled away from him in the moonlight, leaving him standing like one dazed by the side of the Magic Mirror.

But it was only for a moment that he remained thus motionless.

He thought apprehensively.

"It was most unwise in Mrs. West to allow her niece to go roaming about alone at this hour. Even upon my grounds she may lose her way, or meet with some unpleasant adventure. I will follow her at a safe distance, and see that she gets back safely to the Hall."

He set out hurriedly, and, turning the bend in the road, almost ran over two figures standing motionless under the tall trees that bordered the lane—Mrs. West, with Leonora sobbing in her arms.

The good woman, looking up, uttered a cry of relief.

"Oh, Lord Lancaster! I am so glad to see you," she exclaimed. "I am so frightened. Something must have happened to Leonora. You see how she's crying. Well, she came out for a breath of fresh air, and then she wanted to hear the nightingales at the Magic Mirror, and so I sat down and waited for her; but she stayed so long, I went to look for her; and there she came flying into my arms, and crying like some hurt thing. Did you see anything or any person, my lord?" anxiously.

He was intensely annoyed. The sight of Leonora sobbing grievously in the woman's arms bitterly irritated him.

Why would she misjudge him so persistently? why misunderstand him always?

He looked at the graceful black figure with its head bowed on Mrs. West's plump shoulder, and said, curtly:

"Miss West is unnecessarily alarmed. She has seen no one or nothing but myself. It was the sight of me that alarmed her."

"Oh, hush! I did not mean to tell her!" cried Leonora through her sobs.

There was a note of warning in her voice; but in his vexation he did not heed it.

Mrs. West was looking at him anxiously.

"Of course, she would not have been frightened at the sight of you, my lord!" she exclaimed.

"I—was not frightened at anything—I was only angry," Leonora said, lifting her head at this moment, and hushing her low sobs into silence. "He had no right, Aunt West," she added, incoherently.

"No right!" echoed the good woman, looking from one to the other in amazement. "Why, what has he done, my dear?"

"Nothing; only looked over my shoulder into the water—and—and frightened me. Please don't think me silly, Aunt West. I think I'm nervous to-night. Let us go," said the girl, without looking at the tall, handsome form standing so near her.

"Let me come to-morrow and explain," he said, humbly, coming nearer to her; but she turned her face resolutely from him.

"No," she said, icily; "it is quite unnecessary. Come, Aunt West."

She dragged the good woman away, and left him standing there in the moonlight, with a settled shadow upon his face.

"What a contretemps!" he said to himself, gloomily. "Ah! how little I thought, when I came out to-night to smoke that solitary cigar, that I should meet with such an adventure! How angry she was! Every time we meet we drift further away from each other!"

He went back to Lady Adela and his guests after awhile. The earl's daughter chided him because he had left them for that odious cigar.

"It was most ungallant!" she declared.

"You are mistaken. I went to consult that oracle, the Magic Mirror," he replied.

Lady Adela had heard the old legend. She smiled and bridled.

"Did you see your fate?" she asked him; and he answered, in a strange tone:

"I saw the woman I love in the Magic Mirror."

The earl's beautiful daughter was a little puzzled by his reply. She wondered if hers was the face he had seen in the water, but she dared not put the thought into words.

CHAPTER XXV

Several days passed away very quietly after Leonora's first day and night at Lancaster Park. The girl stayed in the small rooms to which she was restricted quite as closely as the housekeeper could have desired. She did not even offer to go out, seeming to have tacitly resigned herself to the situation.

She unpacked one of her trunks and showed Mrs. West the sketches she had promised to show her; she took out all her pretty, simple black dresses, and hung them on their pegs in the little dressing-closet her aunt assigned her.

When she had nothing else to do she read or embroidered. Her aunt noted with pleasure that she was seldom idle.

She did not know of the long hours Leonora spent, when alone, curled up in a big easy-chair, with her milk-white hands folded in her lap, her eyes half shut, with the dark lashes drooping against the pink cheeks, and a thoughtful, puzzled expression on the fair face.

If she had seen her, Mrs. West would have wondered much what her niece was thinking about.

In the meantime, the gay life of the great folks at Lancaster went on from day to day.

Leonora saw no more of it, steadily declining the well-meant offers of her aunt to provide her with surreptitious peeps at it.

"I do not care about it," Leonora would say, with an eloquent glance at her black dress. "Gayety only jars upon me, auntie, dear. I should like to go out in the fresh air a little; but if I can not do that, I have no desire for the rest."

But Mrs. West, however willing she was, did not dare advise her niece to go out into the grounds where the guests might be encountered at any time, or even old Lady Lancaster herself.

She knew that Leonora's pretty face, once seen by the guests, would excite remark. It had already won the admiration of the house-maids.

These latter persons, having caught occasional glimpses of Leonora in their errands to the housekeeper's room, were disposed to be very sociable with the fair American girl; but Mrs. West put an end to their well-meant cordialities by saying, gently:

"My niece would rather not be disturbed; she is in great trouble; she has recently lost her father."

After that the maids did not court Leonora's society any more. They accepted her aunt's excuse good-naturedly and sympathetically, and contented themselves by talking about her among themselves, and praising her beauty, which they declared to each other was even greater than that of the young ladies who were sojourning at Lancaster—greater even than that of Lady Adela Eastwood, who, it was confidently whispered, was to be the next mistress of Lancaster Park.

Mrs. West grew downright sorry for her pretty prisoner, whose pink cheeks were fading in the close, dark rooms where she was kept. She said to herself that this would not do. She must not have poor Dick's orphan child pining for liberty and light and the blessed sunshine that was free to all.

"I will not do it; no, not if I have to leave Lady Lancaster's service and make a home for the girl elsewhere," she said to herself.

So one day she came into the little room where Leonora, sitting at the window, gazed wistfully out at the green grass and the blue sky, with an unconscious pathos on the sweet, girlish face.

"My dear, you are tired of this stuffy little chamber, I know," she said.

"Not very," said the girl, a little drearily. "I suppose I ought to be grateful to you for giving me such a home."

"Grateful to me for hiding you away in these little musty rooms, as if you hadn't the sweetest face the sun ever shone on!" cried the good woman, self-reproachfully. "Not a bit of it, my dear. I'm ashamed of myself for treating you so. It mustn't go on so, or your health will suffer, and so I shall tell Lady Lancaster; and if she won't allow you the liberty of the grounds, I will go away from here and make us a snug little home somewhere else, where we may come and go as we please; so there!" said the good woman, with sudden independence.

Leonora rose impulsively and went and kissed the homely face of her friend.

"Aunt West, would you really do that much for me?" she exclaimed, delightedly.

"Yes, I would," Mrs. West answered, firmly. "Poor Dick left you to me to take care of, and I'm bound to do the best I can for your happiness."

"Ah!" said Leonora, checking an impatient sigh.

"And I've come to tell you," Mrs. West continued, "that if you'd like to go and sketch the Abbey ruins, you may go this morning, Leonora."

"If I'd like!" cried the girl. "Oh, Aunt West! it's just what I was wishing for. I shall be so happy!"

"Yes; you shall go, dear, and stay all day, if you like. I'll put you up a nice cold lunch in a little basket, and I'll hire the lodge-keeper's boy to show you the way. I'll give him a shilling to go, and he will stay all day to keep you from getting frightened."

"I shall not be frightened," said Leonora, radiant.

"I don't know; it's still and lonesome-like there, and the bats and screech-owls might startle you. And there's an old dismantled chapel, too—"

"Oh, how lovely! I shall sketch that, too!" Leonora exclaimed, clapping her bands like a gleeful child.

"And a little old grave-yard," pursued Mrs. West. "Some of the old Lancasters are buried there. You might be afraid of their ghosts."

"I am not afraid of the Lancasters, dead or living," the girl answered, saucily, her spirits rising at the prospect before her.

She set forth happily under the convoy of little Johnnie Dale, the lodge-keeper's lad, a loquacious urchin who plied her with small-talk while he walked by her side with the lunch-basket Mrs. West had prepared with as dainty care as if for Lady Lancaster herself.

She did not check the boy's happy volubility, although she did not heed it very much, either, as they hurried through the grand old park, where the brown-eyed deer browsed on the velvety green grass, and the great oak-trees cast shadows, perhaps a century old, across their path.

When they had shut the park gates behind them, and struck into the green country lanes, bordered with honeysuckle and lilac, Leonora drew breath with a sigh of delight.

"How sweet it all is! My father's country, too," she said. "Ah! he was right to love these grand old English homes, although he was but lowly born. What a grand old park, what sweet, green lanes, what a sweet and peaceful landscape! It is no wonder that the English love England!"

She remembered how her father, now dead and buried under the beautiful American skies, had loved England, and always intended to return to it some day with his daughter, that she might behold his native land.

She remembered how often he had quoted Mrs. Hemans' lines:

"The stately homes of England,How beautiful they stand!Amidst their tall ancestral treesO'er all the pleasant land!The deer across their greensward boundThrough shade and sunny gleam,And the swan glides past them with the soundOf some rejoicing stream."

"He loved the homes of England, although his fate was not cast with them," she said to herself. "Poor papa! I must try to love England for his sake; it was always dear to him, although he was fond of his kind adopted home, too!"

When they reached the ruins, she studied them carefully on every side to secure a picturesque view. She found that to get the best possible one she would have to sit down among the graves close to the little dismantled chapel.

"You bain't going to sit down amang them theer dead folk, missus?" inquired Johnnie, round-eyed, and on the alert for ghosts.

"Yes, I am. Are you afraid to stay, Johnnie?" she asked, laughing.

"Ya'as, I be," he replied, promptly.

"Very well; you may go off to a distance and play," said Leonora. "Don't let any one come this way to disturb me. And if you get hungry, you may have a sandwich out of my basket."

"I'm hungry now," he answered, greedily.

"Already, you little pig!" she cried. "Very well; take your sandwich now, then, and be off out of my way. I'm going to make a picture."

She sat down on the broken head-stone of an old grave, took out her materials, and while she trimmed her pencils, glanced down and read the name on the tomb beneath her.

It was Clive, Lord Lancaster.

Something like a shudder passed over her as this dead Lancaster, gone from the ways of men more than a century ago, recalled to her the living one.

"What do all the paltry aims and ambitions of our life matter, after all?" the girl asked herself, soberly. "The grave awaits us all at last!

"'The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,Await alike the inevitable hour;The path of glory leads but to the grave.'"

Sitting there among the lonely green graves and broken, discolored monuments, with the ivy creeping over their dim inscriptions, Leonora, a little lonely black figure, began her sketch.

She worked industriously and skillfully, and nothing disturbed her for several hours.

Johnnie had availed himself of the opportunity to make an excursion into the woods on his own account, and she was quite alone; but nothing alarmed her, and she worked on fearlessly amid the fragrant stillness of the lovely June day, whose calmness was broken by nothing louder than the hum of the bees among the flowers, or the joyous carol of the sky-lark as it soared from earth to heaven, losing itself, as it were, in the illimitable blue of the sky.

The midday sun climbed high and higher into the sky, and Leonora, pausing over her nearly completed sketch, pushed back her wide hat from her flushed face, and stopped to rest, glancing around at the quiet graves that encompassed her.

"What a still and peaceful company we are!" she said, aloud, quaintly, never thinking how strange it looked to see her sitting there—the only living thing among the silent tombs.

Then all at once, as if the tenants of the grave had come to life, Leonora heard a soft babel of voices and laughter.

With a start she turned her head.

A party of gay young ladies and gentlemen were strolling toward her across the level greensward. Foremost among them was Lord Lancaster, walking beside the earl's daughter.

It was too late for retreat.

Every eye turned on the graceful figure sitting there so quietly among the graves of the dead and gone Lancasters.

As they passed the low stone wall that divided them, Lancaster lifted his hat and bowed low and profoundly.

Then they were gone, but an eager hum of masculine voices was borne back to her ears on the light breeze:

"By Jove! what a beauty!"

"Heavens! was that a ghost?"

"What a lovely being! Who is she, Lancaster?" She heard his deep, musical voice answer carelessly:

"It is Miss West—a young lady who is staying in the neighborhood for the sketching, I believe."

They went on toward the ruins.

Leonora, with a deeper color in her fair face, bent over her sketch and rapidly put some finishing touches to it.

"Now I wonder where little Johnnie can be?" she thought.

She glanced up and saw Captain Lancaster coming back to her.

CHAPTER XXVI

He came on quickly toward the figure sitting among the graves, with the small head poised defiantly, although Leonora was thinking to herself:

"He is coming to scold me, perhaps, for trespassing on his property."

He came up to her and stood bareheaded before her with the sunlight falling on his fair head—tall, stalwart, handsome—a living Lancaster among those dead and gone ones; one who did no discredit to the name.

"I beg your pardon for interrupting you," he said; "but—you are sketching the ruins?"

"Yes."

"Will you let me see your work?"

She held it out to him in silence.

He scrutinized it in mingled wonder and delight.

"How perfect! how spirited! how beautiful!" he cried. "You must have real talent!"

"Thank you!" she answered, with a slight inclination of her head.

He stood watching the half-averted face a moment in silence. It had a slightly bored air, as if she wished he had not come, or that he would, at least, soon go.

"You are very brave, Miss West, sitting here all alone among these graves," he said, after that momentary pause.

"Did you leave your friends to come back and tell me that?" inquired she, with delicate sarcasm.

"No-o," slowly; "I came back to ask a favor, Miss West."

"Indeed?" incredulously.

"Yes; and it is this: I should like to have that sketch. My friend, Lady Adela, is in raptures over that pile of old ruins. She would like to have a picture of it."

He was watching her closely. He was rewarded for his intent scrutiny by seeing an angry crimson flush the round cheek.

"You would like this for her?" said Leonora, with ominous calmness.

"Yes; will you part with it?—for money, if you will. It is singularly perfect, and should be worth something considerable."

"You are very kind," said Leonora.

She had pulled a flower from a grave, and was tearing its petals apart with fierce cruelty between her white fingers.

"No; I am only just," he said; then, with a smile. "Ah! Miss West, do not be so cruel to that poor flower. I have a shuddering conviction that it is, metaphorically, myself you are deliberately annihilating."

She glanced up to him rather curiously from beneath her shady lashes.

"I—did not really think what I was doing," she said. "Why should you think I would treat you that way?"

"Because I have been so unfortunate as to incur your dislike," he answered.